


The Last Time I Flew

by greenkangaroo



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: Gen, Reincarnation, introspective, link remembers and that is his curse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenkangaroo/pseuds/greenkangaroo
Summary: Shad tries to fathom what is fathomless, and Link remembers.





	

When the sky cannon is fixed Link brings him to see it, which Shad thinks is downright decent of him, considering how much work Link has done. 

“It’s amazing,” Shad says, because it is, a piece of technical mastery of an ancient era. Link looks at it and he smiles. It isn’t the smile of a masterful engineer or a fascinated student. It is more- nostalgic? 

“What’s that for?” Shad asks. 

“What?” 

“You’re smiling.” 

Link turns to look at him. “Oh, nothing. Just,” he glances up- past the sky cannon’s open mouth to the heavens above. “Just thinking about the last time I flew.” 

Shad doesn’t bother asking. 

—

Shad doesn’t ask because he learns it’s a useless endeavor. 

“The monster stopped coming down from Snow Peak,” Ashei says, “after Link climbed to the summit.” 

Shad inquires if perhaps Ashei had wondered why this was, had asked Link about what he’d done while up on a mountain infested by snow wolves and a Beast, but Ashei shakes her head. She is trained in the arts of war, not the arts of conversation. 

Auru answers much the same. When the question is put to Telma, she just smirks and says, “Honey, a woman loves a man of few words.” 

Rusl is a little more helpful. 

“Link is Link.” He says, adjusting his helmet, “and he does what he can when he can.” 

What Link can and can’t do seems to be a matter of debate, but the end result is the same: things get done, and no one asks. 

—

The one time Shad does ask is before the siege of the castle. The other cells are ready. The messages have been sent, the weapons prepared. They will fight or they will fall and the fate of their country and perhaps their world lies in the balance.

Shad is not going to fight at the front. He knows what his weaknesses are. 

“Why,” he asks, “are you so calm?” 

For Link is calm, sharpening his sword, checking his gear, occasionally giving quick and fleeting glances at his shadow cast large against the wall. 

Link looks at Shad and it’s the look that really gets him. It is an old look, fathomless and dark. Shad’s father wrote sometimes about Old Souls. He died before he ever got to meet one. 

Shad swallows and it feels like the room is filled with cotton batting, hot and close. 

Link closes his eyes, leans his head back against the wall. 

“I remember,” he says, “So many things.” 

Shad doesn’t dare breathe. 

“I remember an endless childhood.” Link opens his eyes and gazes at the far wall, past it. “I remember princesses, and fairies.” 

He straightens. “I remember this fight.” He looks down at his hand- his left, wrapped as ever in its leather bracer. “He and I. He remembers, too. He’s waiting.” 

“This fight?” Shad asks and hates himself for it. 

Link smiles at him and the smile is ancient and broken and terrible. 

“I remember music.” Link says. “Time moves like a river, you know. Endless. You can slow the flow, or move it a little, but it will always be headed forward.” 

Shad wonders if Link has finally cracked, if perhaps he should go and get Telma or Auru or hell even Ashei, someone who could handle a fellow so good with a sword as Link if this is really the precipice of his personal disaster. 

“I was alone.” Link says, somewhat absently, as he relaxes his sword hand. “Courage is what you have when you stand alone.” 

He looks at Shad again. “But this time I’m not alone, am I?” He asks. 

And sensing it is very important to say what is right, Shad says, “No, you’re not.” 

Link grins at Shad and he says, “I’ll remember you, too.” 

Many years will go by, so many that the Hyrule Shad knows and loves will become dust, and a new one will rise; for that is the way of things. In this new Hyrule, where twilight is a distant memory, a man wearing green will ride forth into battle.

He will remember Shad, and Ashei, and Telma and Auru, as he remembers all the others who came before, in the tangle of selves which beats in a single golden triangle written upon his heart. 

Link will never be alone again.


End file.
